iMore Editors' Choice: Ravensword, Flare, Elder Sign, and more

Every week, the editors and writers at iMore carefully select some of our favorite, most useful, most extraordinary apps, accessories, gadgets, and websites. This week's selections include a role-playing game, a board game, a comics apps, a photo filter app for Mac, and a game that will grab the heart of every grammar nazi.

If you've ever wanted some rough approximation of the Elder Scrolls games on your iPad, now you have it. Ravensword: Shadowlands is an open world role-playing game with classic progression, strong storyline, and tons of monsters to slay. Shadowlands is a sequel to two-year-old game, and as you can imagine the graphics are significantly improved. Camera shake, dynamic lighting, and well-executed lip syncing with the occasional voice acting the game has to offer. Delightfully absent are any signs of in-app purchases, and the soundtrack is great to boot. Fantasy fans should definitely check out Ravensword: Shadowlands.

Elder Sign: Omens HD is a take on the 2011 board game. Set in the Arkham Horror universe, Elder Sign sees you maneuvering a team of investigators in an effort to stop one of the Old Ones, beings on the order of Cthulhu, from entering our universe by completing different adventures. Players race against a clock of sorts, as the Old One you are trying to seal away is trying to break out. You must find the requisite number of Elder Signs in order to win and lock the Old One away, while they are attempting to gain Doom tokens and break free to devour the world. Players gain Elder Signs by completing the correct adventures. At each adventure, you will attempt to beat challenges by finding the correct combination of glyphs and matching them to the challenges. Each investigator has unique abilities and starting items that aid in completing adventures, from adding special glyphs to spells that change one glyph into another. The game is $6.99 and comes with three Old Ones, while players can buy Cthulhu and Ithaqua for $2.99 each.

Although there is plenty of apps out there for normal comics such as Batman, Superman and Spiderman, there isn't a ton of selection when it comes to comics for younger children. Luckily, Dreamworks caters to that audience and offers up a wide assortment from their base of characters. Kung-Fu Panda, Shrek, Rise of the Guardians and more are offered within the app. Many of the comics available offer free previews and while the prices for the full version can be a bit on the higher side they're still pretty reasonable. The app is free and available now for both iPhone and iPad.

After all the brouhaha surrounding Instagram's terms of service this week, and the debate about the true cost of "free-as-in-Google" apps, I was reminded of a little gem from the fine folks at the Iconfactory (makers of Twitterrific) called Flare. It's a Mac app that lets you easily add filters and effects to your photographs. And it's a paid app. No strings attached. You buy it, you use it, and they don't want or expect anything else from you. It's a done deal.

The latest update to Flare, version 1.5, added two new presets, Tin Type and InstaMatic, two new borders, Tin Type and Hipster, new profile presets in the color menu, Facebook sharing, rotation that keeps the image filling the frame, and a way to increase the effect of the Shuffle.

Flare is a beautiful app that does a beautiful job making pictures even more beautiful, or more interesting. And what's more, it's on sale right now.

The Grading Game is sure to be a hit for all you grammar nazis out there. In this game, you are a TA for a mean professor who wants to fail his students. It is your job to grade papers for him and find as many errors as possible. The more errors you find, the lower the score the student receives, and the happier the professor becomes. You also earn more money for giving out low grades and your goal is to pay off your student loans.

The Grading Game is actually a pretty challenging game because you have a time limit for each each paper you grade. The time limit is barely enough time to read through the paper, so don't expect to be able to read it slowly and carefully. Part of the challenge is finding the errors the first time you read it.

Former app and photography editor at iMore, Leanna has since moved on to other endeavors. Mother, wife, mathamagician, even though she no longer writes for iMore you can still follow her on Twitter @llofte.